Women, Peace, and Security Agenda in Africa: Going Far but Not Further?

There are opportuni�es and challenges in the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Agenda ar�culated in the UN Security Council Resolu�on 1325 of 2000 and other successive resolu�ons. However, these opportuni�es can be interpreted as an epitome of the proverb “a cup half-empty or half-full.” The WPS is a progressive agenda for gender programmes in Africa, but it appears unknown beyond policy and ac�vist circles on the con�nent. Using secondary research and content analysis (CA) of current literature, this study seeks to inves�gate the progress made by the WPS agenda in Africa since the UNSCR 1325 was adopted. It was revealed that despite the challenges, the gender perspec�ve is not deficient in peacekeeping opera�ons (PKOs) except in peace agreements and that gender 1325 commitments are mirrored in the mandates of PKOs. However, the African Union-United Hybrid Opera�on in Darfur (UNAMID) showed the most minor WPS agenda considera�on, and so did the United Na�ons Mul�dimensional Integrated Stabilisa�on Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA). It remains unclear for the rest of Africa if the agenda is stagna�ng or going forward due to the structural challenges rooted in masculinity issues and patriarchal mindsets, among others.


Introduc�on
In the 20 th century, women's involvement in the international sphere of politics was marginal (Anon, 2021).Reports commissioned by the United Nations (UN) on peacekeeping operations (PKOs), traditionally viewed as hard politics allied to masculinity and militarism, revealed a common lack of gender recognition and female participation (Simić, 2010).This highlights the need for rethinking the role of women in transnational peace and security (Simić, 2010).and revealed the implementation gaps (UN, 2022;AUC, 2023;AU, 2023;Binder et al., 2008;Hendricks, 2015).A previous study by Kreft (2017) showed  Nwoha, 2020).Conflicts that emerged after the Cold War include social, internationalsocial, and ethnic conflicts (Pankhurst, 2004).Sub-regional and regional institutions in Africa In a patriarchal context, Hendricks argues that there is no peace to talk about because patriarchy is itself violent and eventually creates behaviours that trigger a war or armed conflict (Hendricks, 2015).
The peace feminist's agenda is to have these patriarchal forms and the militarist manifestation dismantled in the practice of conflict and war.However, these perspectives are often not embedded in the peacebuilding processes, even though these perspectives were foundational to the WPS agenda (Hendricks, 2015;Crenshaw, 1989).What is needed, as asserted by Young, is a transformative agenda to ensure that all forms of exclusion and economic, political and social inequality are eradicated, especially in Africa (Young, 2010).

Women, Peace, and Security Agenda in Feminist Perspec�ves
During the Cold War, research was predominantly from a realist perspective, concerned with the stability of power dynamics, national security and wars, but oblivious of women and gender in the security concept (Sjoberg, 2009;Tickner, 2019).traditional roles (Blanchard, 2003;Jansson & Eduards, 2016;Sjoberg, 2009).Security studies through the lens of gender and feminist research defied conventional security studies and gave rise to gender-sensitive concepts of security (Higate & Henry, 2004).As an alternative to males as referent human beings for security, the new security definition was multidimensional, broad and gender-sensitive (Jansson & Eduards, 2016;Blanchard, 2003: Sjoberg, 2009).
The second leg of the stool, the gender-as-difference or women's approach, encourages initiatives that identify women as an underprivileged group who merit special attention based on their differences (Booth & Bennett, 2002).It aligns with the premises put forward by Squires intersection of postcolonial and feminist theory (Booth & Bennett, 2002;Crenshaw, 1989;Dunn, 2016).Postcolonial feminism reviews the main racial narrative assumptions, such as white men perceived as protecting peacekeeping operations (PKOs), brown/black men seen as symbols of sexual harassment, and women are excluded from the antiracist and feminist discourse (Crenshaw, 1989;Pratt, 2013).Focusing on the experience of black women, postcolonial feminism is an intersection between race and gender discourses (Crenshaw, 1989;Hooks, 2015).

Literature Review
The literature was reviewed under the following themes: international WPS efforts in the Copenhagen (Binder et al., 2008).

The Adop�on of UN Security Resolu�on 1325
Resonating

WPS Agenda Implementa�on
The framework of the WPS is predicated on ten resolutions adopted in national action plans

Discussion of Main Findings
The findings reveal that while a clear development towards better gender sensitivity exists in UN mandates for PKOs, not all the UN PKOs consider the essence of 1325 to the same extent.This study is built upon these findings and considers the mandates of six different PKOs.
known as gender-as-diversity, advocates for broadening the focus from gender inequality to appreciation of intersecting and diverse inequalities(Booth & Bennett, 2002), followingCrenshaw's (1989) andHooks' (2015) The three perspectives in the framework of the three-legged gender stool help to answer the research question in this study.Previous studies have shown that all three perspectives are echoed in the WPS agenda, though to different degrees (Hooks, 2015; liberal feminist theory and gender-as-equality viewpoint, the current African PKOs are expected to focus intensely on amplifying women's voices in all political activities to promote equality (Dunn, 2016).In light of the gender-as-difference view and the cultural and radical feminist theory, the WPS agenda in Africa considers different women's experiences in wars.Referring to differences between women and men, the pillars in Resolution 1325 of 2000 on protection, relief, and recovery in Africa are expected to include women's needs and embrace a gender-as-difference standpoint.However, the critique of the essentialist assertions on men's and women's differences dictates that PKOs should concentrate on reconstruction in the later stages of a conflict.The gender-asdifference perspective is like an afterthought in the current African context.Meanwhile, unlike the other two established traditional perspectives, genderas-diversity draws mainly from Africa's postcolonial epoch and black feminism in the 1990s.
20 th century, the adoption of UN Security Resolution 1325, the implementation of the WPS Agenda, and the African Union's Commitment to the WPS Agenda in Africa.Interna�onal WPS A�empts in the 20 th CenturyEven though the initial women activists for equal participation can be traced as far back as the late 1800s to the early 1900s, the roots of women's involvement in international politics

From
As such, Resolution 1325 on WPS came into being.

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figures of women in positions of decision-making, especially in parliament, are those convalescing from conflict, for example, South Africa, Uganda, and Rwanda.However, this improved participation has failed to decrease gender-based violence (GBV), nor has it bettered women's socioeconomic status.This focus on figures only restricts the transformative implementation of the WPS agenda in Africa.The concept of increasing the participation of women in decision-making is meant to ensure that the perspectives and needs of women are addressed adequately in the decisionmaking processes.However, in most African countries, an appointment in any